"You should keep it. That was my father's lightsaber, and I have my own now. But you didn't come all this way just to return my old lightsaber."
"No, I—the galaxy needs you. The Resistance needs you. The First Order destroyed the entire Hosnian system, and, and—"
"I know. I felt his death, as I felt the deaths of so many billions."
"Then why didn't you do anything? Why have you just been sitting here all this time, when people needed you?"
"Because I'm afraid I'll just make things worse. This whole mess is my fault. I created the Knights of Ren. I trained them. I have started to think that the galaxy would have been better off if I had never tried to recreate the Jedi Order."
"What? But you can't hold yourself responsible! You couldn't have known what they would do, what would happen."
Luke smiled at how quickly Rey had gone from blaming him to defending him, and Rey had to laugh at herself too. "Why not? Why couldn't I have foreseen it? Seeing the future is among the powers of a Jedi."
"Well, fine, maybe you could have foreseen it, but Kylo Ren didn't build Starkiller Base by himself, and he didn't found the First Order. You can't possibly be responsible for that!"
Luke actually laughed a little at that, but bitterly. "No, that's true, I'm not responsible for the existence of the First Order. But it seems the Resistance didn't need me to destroy Starkiller Base. Here, sit," he said, gesturing to a flat stone. "You've come a long way. I'll try to answer your questions, to the extent I can."
Rey sat, and Luke sat on another stone opposite her. "Why didn't you foresee what would happen?"
"The future is always in motion. I did see what happened as one possible outcome, among several. I just needed to believe that I could avert it. I was wrong."
"Why did Kylo Ren turn to the Dark Side?"
"Ben Solo was naturally gifted in the Force. The Force is strong in my family. My father had it; I have it; my sister has it; and her son has it. My grandfather, I suspect, also had it. But Ben was also…undisciplined, unfocused, well, lazy. Other students, most of whom had nowhere near his natural ability, progressed faster, became stronger. Ben resented that. He accused me of being so concerned with not showing favoritism toward him that I was actually treating him unfairly."
"Were you?"
"Far from it. I should have expelled him. The Force can be very dangerous for someone like Ben. I did expel other students who had similar emotional problems. They were the ones who became the Knights of Ren. The simple fact is that Ben thought that because of who he was, because of his lineage, he deserved to be the most powerful, the most advanced, but he didn't want to work for it. So he found another way to the power he wanted: the Dark Side."
"Is the Dark Side more powerful?"
"I asked my teacher that once. I'll give you the same answer he gave me: no, but it is quicker and easier. That was exactly what Ben was looking for. He recruited the ones whom I had had to expel, the ones like him, and formed the Knights of Ren. One night, they attacked the academy, and slaughtered the other students. I remember the last thing he said to me: 'who is your best student now?'"
"Why is the Dark Side quicker and easier?"
"An excellent question. To understand that, you have to understand what the Force is: it is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together. Some people can feel it, can draw on it for strength. That much you have already begun to sense. But because it is generated by all living things, it is shaped by our thoughts and actions. Fear, anger, hate, they are the Dark Side. Tell me, when you fought Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base, how did you feel? Were you afraid? Angry? Hateful?"
Rey did not answer for a long time. "Yes to all three. I was afraid for myself and my friend Finn. I was angry at Ren for murdering Han Solo—I hated him for that, and I still do. I came here to ask you to train me as a Jedi, but now I think you shouldn't."
"Actually, I'm more convinced than ever that you would make a great Jedi, if you choose that path. I should explain. The lightsaber you are holding in your hand belonged to my father, Darth Vader. The two Jedi who trained me, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, wanted me to kill him. When I told Obi-Wan that I couldn't kill my own father, he told me that the Emperor had already won. But when I did confront Vader and the Emperor, the Emperor wanted me to kill Vader: he was convinced that if I did, I would fall to the Dark Side and become his servant. I kept refusing to fight, trying to keep control of my emotions as I had been taught. Vader kept trying to goad me into fighting. In the end, he threatened that if I would not turn to the Dark Side, he would kill me and try with my sister instead."
"What did you do?"
"I got very angry and I attacked him, and I won. But I didn't kill him. I stopped myself in time. Then the Emperor tried to kill me, and Vader—Anakin, killed him to save me. Do you see the point I am trying to make?"
"No."
Luke smiled. "I did draw on the Dark Side for the strength to defeat Vader, and I doubt I could have won otherwise. It was my fear for my sister, and my anger that our father would threaten to do that to her, that gave me the strength to prevail. But it didn't magically turn me evil. Fear, anger, and even hate, are not evil in themselves. Fear: why shouldn't you be afraid of things that really are dangerous? Fear is rational, fear will keep you alive. Anger: should you not get angry at things that are outrageous? You should feel nothing when you see wrongdoing and injustice? Even hate: should you not hate evil deeds, at the very least?"
"So is the Dark Side evil or isn't it?"
"Not inherently, no. What the Dark Side is, again, is easy. That's the point I've been trying to make to you. When you drew on the Dark Side to save Finn and yourself from Kylo Ren, you weren't doing anything wrong. It wasn't going to make you evil to do it. The problem is this: the quick and easy path to power is most attractive to precisely the people who should not have power. You are not going to become evil just because you drew on the Dark Side to save yourself and your friend. It wasn't evil for you to hate Kylo Ren for murdering his own father. But when you start viewing anger and hate as sources of power, as tools to be used, you will start cultivating anger and hatred for people who do not deserve it, and that will lead you to do evil things. Now do you understand?"
"I think so."
"Then perhaps I've improved as a teacher, because that was what I tried to teach Ben and the other Knights of Ren, and it didn't take. I told them that the Dark Side was not inherently evil, and they took that as license to start using it freely. After all, it wasn't evil, and it was the easy path to the power they craved."
"But that wasn't the way you were taught?"
"No, but I thought that I was wiser than the ones who taught me, or that at least I knew more. I told you how their teaching had twisted me into knots: it was my duty as a Jedi to kill the Emperor, but I was afraid that if I did, I would become just like him. I thought I had come to understand that the old Jedi Order had lost its way, that they had become so obsessed with repressing the Dark Side that they had helped create the Sith that destroyed them. Action and reaction. I thought that what the new Jedi Order needed was balance."
"And now you think your old teachers were right after all?"
"No, I still think they were wrong. As much as I loved them, they were wrong. They were wrong not to tell me that Darth Vader was my father; they were wrong to believe that Vader was irredeemable; they were wrong to tell me to bury my feelings deep down; they were even wrong to tell me not to go to Cloud City to rescue my friends."
"Cloud City? What happened there?"
"Oh, let me tell you the whole story. Bear in mind, some of this I only heard from Han, Leia, and Lando later…."
After he had finished, Rey asked "I think I see. So if they were wrong, does that mean that you think you were right?"
"No, I was probably wrong too. Maybe my philosophy was right, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea to teach it to people who weren't ready. Some ideas are dangerous, not because they are false, but because they are true. What I learned through painful experience could not necessarily be communicated in words."
"I think I understand. Does the fact that you are telling me all this mean that you have decided not to train me, then?"
"No, because I think you've already learned what I've been telling you through some painful experiences of your own. And I don't think you are here because you want power over other people. But you are going to have to decide for yourself; the path of the Jedi is not easy, and you will be tempted. Now, you've had a long walk up this hill, and a long journey before that. I am going to walk down this hill to say hello to Chewie and Artoo. Why don't you wait here and meditate on your decision? When I get back, I'll make you something to eat, and you can tell me what you've decided."
To be continued….